widowhood conference

The weekend of July 17th my MIL and I headed down to San Diego for the 1st annual national conference of widowhood hosted by Soaring Spirits. 

Over the weekend the question was asked, 

"What does a widow/er look like?

How about this?

We arrived and headed to the "welcome reception" for appetizers and wine.  As I stood there looking around taking it all in, I thought to myself "Thank goodness I have my MIL" because I felt awkward about introducing myself to anyone. At least I had her to prevent me from standing there alone, wondering who was going to approach me. A few women were brave enough to approach us and introduce themselves. Our conversation went something like this.

"Hi, I'm Mary." 

"I'm Erynn and this is my MIL Debi" 

"So, how did your husband die?" 

No small talk. No beating around the bush. We cut right to the chase. 

One of the speakers approached us and started a nice conversation with us. Eventually it lead to our story, which included me explaining I was pregnant at the time. She pointed to two women sitting at a table together that she has just introduced minutes before. They were both pregnant when their husbands died. Now, I consider myself a pretty outgoing person but I am not one to randomly go up to people I don't know, introduce myself and engaged in conversation. Just not my style. That's why it was a good thing Patrick came up to me one day in high school, after our math class. If it were left up to me, we may never have met!

Anyway, I introduced myself and told them I too was pregnant when my husband died. We had that factor in common and that is a big common factor... if you ask me. It's hard enough to deal with tragedy. Add emotions, hormones and a baby. Pretty disastrous..

 

Next, I introduced myself to Matt Logelin as he was exiting the welcome party. Again, out of my element. He invited us to join him and a few other for dinner at Blue Point, a delicious seafood restaurant. I invited the once pregnant widows to join us and the 4 of us headed to dinner to meet up with Matt and the other women. We asked the valet to point us in the right direction and mentioned it was 4 short blocks away. FOUR blocks?  We hailed a taxi, SD style. 

Little did this poor soul know... he's be bikin' us uphill to dinner

on our way... jammin' to some ipod tunes 

we made it... can you see the sweat? 

all of us at dinner...

While taking this photo a stranger sitting at a nearby table asked Matt, "What's your secret?"

{in regards to the 1:12 ratio} Matt chuckled. If he only knew. 

I think I was definitely one of the youngest, if not the youngest, person there. I noticed a few girls that looks to be in their 20's but never got a chance to talk to them. 

Check out all the peeps.

Overall, I thought the conference was beneficial. I stepped out of my comfort zone, met new people, listened to some great speakers and enjoyed a few days with my MIL. Soon after the accident, I received several emails from friends linking me to other widow's blogs. I've bene reading them ever since and was able to meet them in person finally.

Check out Melodie, Andrea & Candice's blogs and show them some love & support. 

We all need it.